Five creative ways to charge your smartphone without a charger

If there’s anything that causes us to panic about our smartphones, it’s that moment when they throw up the low battery notification – especially when we aren’t in a position to charge it. What do you do if this happens? Thanks to these five neat tricks, you’ll now know how to charge your phone without electricity.

1. Recharge your phone using your voice

If your first reaction is to scream at your phone when you find it is running out of battery, whatever you do don’t hold back – scream!

Thanks to a device developed at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, your desperate cries will now actually help your battery. The first prototype is able to generate 50 mV of electricity from the sounds of 100 dB. This is the equivalent to the noise generated by heavy traffic, an airplane flying overhead or the angry screams of someone with a dying smartphone. All this is all possible thanks to the current generated by the vibration of zinc oxide cables between two flexible electrodes. In the future, this device will allow electricity to be generated more efficiently and, who knows, we may some day live in a world where shouting at your phone may actually help.

2. Recharge your smartphone with a crank case

If you don’t like the first method, you might find the second one more appealing. For around $75, you could purchase this crank case which allows you to recharge your smartphone with nothing more than the strength of your own wrist. This device, the BoostTurbine 4000, has LED charge indicators to show how much battery life you have and guarantees enough battery life to make a one minute call or send some messages after cranking for a little under four minutes. In addition to charging your phone, you also get the added benefit of working on those biceps.

3. Recharge your smartphone using wind

The third method uses a fan for the smartphone and allows you to charge the battery using wind energy. To charge your phone, just place it into an iFan charging case on the handlebars of any bicycle and ride for six hours. After six hours, you’ll have generated enough electricity to have fully charged your phone. For now, the iFan is only available for iPhones, but given the originality of the idea and how environmentally sound it is makes it worthy of a mention.

4. Recharge your smartphone using your body heat

You can also use your sleep to recharge your phone. Instead of leaving your phone plugged in alone all night, let it be close to you. Vodafone researchers have developed the PocketPower. It’s a pair of denim shorts that, in eight hours, is able to recharge your smartphone enough to make 24 minutes of calls. This is all based on the assumption that the shorts are able to reach a temperature of 37 degrees. The idea is far from absurd, especially if you’re doing sports or spending time outdoors.

5. Recharge your smartphone using fruit and vegetables

It’ll take more than a carrot or a fruit salad to charge it. The artist Caleb Charland succeeded in charging a Nokia Lumia 930 with fruit and vegetables. To charge your smartphone this way you’ll need a big wall, 800 apples and potatoes linked to each other with cables, zinc and copper wires, sunglasses and a lumberjacks’ beard. This circuit (the beard isn’t obligatory) is able to generate an electric current of 20 mAh on average and around 6V, so enough to charge a phone. In reality, it’s an advert for Microsoft who are showing us the hidden power of food.

Thanks to these tricks, you’ll never run out of battery again! What do you think?